1/29/2013

How does this work out for the GOP? I think the argument is: you have to stop antagonizing Latinos and support anmesty that will legalize millions of people who aren’t ever going to vote for you, because otherwise you will lose elections.

That about sum it up?

That sounds like the kind of logic our GOP should go for.

But that’s election politics. What about the moral equation?

I’m not sure why people who came here illegally as adults should cut in line in front of people who tried to become citizens the right way. How to deal with people brought here at a young age is a more difficult question, since it’s not their fault they’re here. You could argue the incentive aspect, but as long as we have birthright citizenship, there is an incentive to come here illegally for your children’s sake. I don’t particularly mind helping out people who have spent their whole lives here and are technically illegal through no fault of their own.

But it’s different for adults.

If we believe amnesty is immoral because it allows lawbreakers to cut in line, where is this electoral benefit that mandates rewarding illegal behavior? Please explain.

100 Responses to “Open Thread: Amnesty II”

The fundamental problem (present also in these reforms) is that the immigration system prevents most legal immigration from Mexico. The “line” never moves, since by the time new spouses and relatives (who jump the line legally) are taken care of, all the slots are taken up.

The result is cynicism and law-breaking.

We have to accept that there will be much greater immigration from Mexico and Central America than from other places and reform our laws to match.

Until that happens, the promises of this reform will be hollow, nothing will be fixed, and the same pressures to immigrate illegally will remain. Only the law’s bad effects (like making employment subject to government OK) will really happen. The rest of this rotten system will persist.

A better plan would involve big fines, tax audits, and public service as a path to citizenship without respect to quotas.

When one set of my great-grandparents arrived here by boat from Europe in the 19th century the law and custom was that the the father of the family was incentivized to learn English and rapidly become a citizen– because the day he did become a citizen his wife and minor children here with him did too. That system worked pretty well and made sense to Americans old and new for quite a while.

Things seem kind of bassackwards now, what with anchor babies and all.

And for God’s Sakes can’t we get Mexico to allow US citizens to live in Mexico, buy property and have equal treatment before the law? The current imbalance in immigration rights is shameful and about to get worse.

When one set of my great-grandparents arrived here by boat from Europe in the 19th century the law and custom was that the the father of the family was incentivized to learn English and rapidly become a citizen– because the day he did become a citizen his wife and minor children here with him did too. That system worked pretty well and made sense to Americans old and new for quite a while.

You know, I live in Southern California and have never ever seen an Hispanic beggar. Lot of day laborers, though. Hispanic men have a pretty strong work ethic, at least in my state. Would that some citizens had the same.

As for language, the second generation of Mexicans speaks perfectly fine English for the most part — especially now that laws preventing(!) schools from teaching them English have been repealed.

==We have to accept that there will be much greater immigration from Mexico and Central America than from other places and reform our laws to match.==

How and why? If so, it means the idea of the melting pot result so key to our grand experiment– that individuals from myriad geographic locations and cultures would come here, join our country, revere our founding ideals, assimilate, while bringing along their foods, new words, talents, ideas, and genetic material–is basically lost.

The melting pot is what constantly strengthened and enriched the fabric of our nation, while never overpowering it with a single different culture and language.

Foreign born children of illegal residents here are fruit of the poison tree and shouldn’t be granted preference over legal applicants. In fact, lawful applicants from outside the country deserve preference over applicants illegally in this country whether they entered illegally on their own or were brought here by their law breaking parents.

We should reward legal applicants and strongly discourage illegal residence of any variety every chance we get.

If an applicant’s parents are law breakers no claims for preference for their children can rest on any ground but the length of their illegitimate presence regardless of issues of fault, which is irrelevant. Their parents are the ones at fault and no one else.

We have no responsibility to accommodate, and every incentive to discourage, the foreign born children of law breaking parents from displacing legal applicants for entry. Anything else is both illegal and unfair.

Wait’ll the blacks figure out that this will bring more hispanics out in the open to compete for what few jobs are available for blacks.

I’m surprised none have complained about this yet.

The article in my local paper made the same point, though not as directly. It pointed out that many agriculture workers would now move to cities, which would increase competition for low-wage jobs. It did not mention which minority group in urban America has the most to lose with increased competition in low-wage jobs.

At this point, the only thing I think that the GOP can demand is that all formerly illegal immigrants be prohibited from seeking citizenship until (1) everyone who has been legally waiting in line has been processed and (2) they can show that they have consistently paid taxes for ten consecutive years. I could accept the former illegals being granted permanent residency, but I think that citizenship should only be granted under fairly extraordinary situations.

As Milton Freidman said (quoted by elissa above), open borders with a huge welfare state is a recipe for disaster.

The “framework” says that “illegals” presently in the US could get a visa, which wouldn’t allow them access to welfare services, until some lamebrain federal judge (most likely in the Ninth Circuit) says otherwise.

Employers hire illegal immigrants, rather than Americans, because they will work for less than minimum wage. (I’m going to presume that we really aren’t talking about H-1 Visa groups here who are computer programmers.) Once ObamaCare is implemented, companies will also desire to hire illegals so as to not have to pay for their health insurance.

If we make illegal immigrants eligible for citizenship, they will promptly all lose their jobs and be eligible for federal benefits. The latter is a big problem. We’re broke; we can’t afford to bring the entire world here and take care of them.

If we make it so that American companies can hire illegal immigrants, but will have to pay them minimum wage and give them benefits, then American companies will often lay off their immigrant employees. If you’re paying the same amount of money, why hire someone who doesn’t speak the language? If we also make it so that illegal immigrants are still not eligible for benefits, but are eligible for subsidies to move back home, they will self-deport en masse.

So yeah, call me crazy, but I think the easiest way out of this conundrum is to reduce incentives for companies to hire illegals by making them pay the same, or more, than for native born or legal immigrant workers. Then let them self-deport as they all lose their jobs to high school students.

Alternatively, we could fight illegal immigration like mad while opening up positions in the math, science, engineering, and medical fields. Romney’s plan of stapling a green card to every Ph.D. in science diploma has some merit. Get that through and make it hard for them to paint us as anti-immigrant.

(CNSNews.com) – The Department of Homeland Security is promoting welfare benefits for immigrants on its website WelcometoUSA.gov despite a law that seeks to prevent new immigrants from becoming dependent after entering the United States.

We would be in a much better position to achieve immigration reform if the Obama Administration had spent that last four years enforcing federal law rather than dismantling it. Brave immigration agents have been left with no recourse but to sue their own Department head, simply so that they—like any other law officers—will be allowed to do their jobs. Just last Friday a federal judge made an important preliminary ruling in their favor. The ICE union also held their own agency head, John Morton, in no confidence with a unanimous vote.

The biggest problem is a government that doesn’t enforce existing laws.

I don’t think more regulations on small business is they way to fix the immigrations

if this loser little country can’t control its border why should productive enterprises like a farm or a slaughterhouse or a convenience store or a leather belt belt factory have to bear the responsibility to fix the problem

Here’s some great news about amnesty: many of the formerly illegal immigrants will be able to partake of the fruits of Obamacare (after the requisite five-year wait, of course, unless we generously and compassionately waive the rules and enroll them immediately). And it will only cost us a mere $50 billion per year (7 million enrollees times an average of $7400 that Medicaid spends on each client)! Since Dear Leader has taught us all that we can spend to our heart’s content and never have to face the consequences, what’s not to like?

Meanwhile, last evening, on that sanctuary of sanctimony, the PBS NewsHour, there was a propaganda piece on the same subject featuring an extremely well-spoken young Hispano-Latino something or other relating all his “undocumented” woes. The piece included his tooling around his Alabama town in a good-looking mini-van while recounting that neither he nor his parents, plural, have driver’s licenses yet they “have” to drive because there are no buses or other transportation alternatives. Unsurprisingly, the vehicle’s registration and insurance statuses weren’t expounded on. Next he decided, or his handlers decided, that he should make all those oppressively racist Americans, who cling bitterly to what once was our “Rule of Law”, aware of the social injustice of how he was unable to go to college because because the oppressively racist American administrators wanted him to pay international (when, in fact, he appears only to be bi-national) student fees which he wanted us all to believe are 3 or 4 times higher than the fees he feels entitled to pay.

“You know, I live in Southern California and have never ever seen an Hispanic beggar. Lot of day laborers, though. Hispanic men have a pretty strong work ethic, at least in my state. Would that some citizens had the same.”

I live here, too. I used to review workers comp claims. About a third to half were Hispanics, mostly illegal. They claimed a second grade education for the most part and roughly a third were illiterate in Spanish and English.

If there were no welfare state, I would not care. Many of the work comp claims were probably because of bad work conditions. I, too, think the work ethic is strong but they don’t have the skills for any but menial jobs. The LA County hospital is full of their families. The schools are full of their kids.

I wish you were correct about second kids of illegals but the data doesn’t show that. The behavior is very similar to other poorly educated minorities. It’s changed in the last 40 years,

The Republicans want to take this issue off the table. If they were successful, and they are nit likely to be succcessful, they could perhaps gradually begin to recover votes from Hispanics and Asians, or at least stop losing them.

I think, however, the Republican Party does not truly understand this issue.

BTW, the Democrats want to at least appear to be doing something, because otherwise they won’t get as much turnout, volunteers and contributions.

Compromises agreed to in the beginning may amke any will either impossible to pass or unworkable in practice.

One compromise is trying not to increase total legal immigration. Won’t work. So far I’m not hearing that.

Another issue is temporary workers. Won’t work. What could work, is allowing literally anyone in the world – witha few national security exceptions, which must be determined yes or no very quickly to come and work in some counties or in some jobs.

Then there’s the idea of making citizenship, as opposed to legal residency dependant on supposed greater control of the border and people not overstaying visas.

What they would do is have 3 categories: Citizens, permanent residents and legalized people without green cards – that is who coiuld remain indefinitely but would not be a\on a path toward ciotizenship.

Delaying citizenship is an idea touted once by Lindsey Graha, It postponmnes political consequences to the republican Party. For that reason democrats don’t like it. The consequences are only political. It is no deterrent toward staying (except for people afraid of getinge snared in laws)

Anotehr problem – asking peolle to pay back taxes. This will destrioy the law. Many people owe taxes for working. IOt is impossible to tell how much. more important it is unrealistic to expect people to pay. It is also unfair, as taxes were not withheld and if someone wants taxes to be paid the onus should be on the employer(s)

Furthermore illegal immigrants are not eligible for the Earned Income tax Credit yet Congress, when establishing income tax rates took the EITC into account.

Of course a Democratic president could look the other way. But isn’t what Republicans want that all sorts of people should not think existential issues (for friends, family, church memberr,s romantic partners) are not dependent on whether the president is a Democrat or a Republican? That’s the situation now.

So that have got to drop this back tax thing . It is a poison pill if there ever was one – or replace with a fixed amount that clears any back taxes. That they are even discussing payment of back taxes indicate they some Senators don’t understand this issue.

Do they want to legalize people or do they not? If they do, they have to drop this back tax provision.

They also have to get rid of quotas. (in the executable portion of the law.)

Quotas mean lines. They can destroy a provision altogether if they are too low. As long as you have any kind of quota those people who came illegally to the United States have an advantge.

The public won’t tolerate an advantage too readily, unless you can say it is the last time which you can’t, but it will tolerate legal immigration at 4 or 5 times the amount we have now.

Any idea of making it easier for PhD graduates in the wsciences to remain in the United States but reduce legal immigration in compnesation is anon starter.

It’s a complete cynical betrayal of us, and of people waiting in line legally. None of the regs designed to make it “fair” will mitigate this disaster. Millions more will come to get the green card and the benefits. The country will become California, a welfare state.

As for assimilation, the ESL classes in LA are directed towards second- and third-generation kids.

Sammy – Why view it as a political problem first and foremost and why assume Republicans don’t understand an issue, which is your default position when people tax a position with which you don’t agree?

Why not view it from the standpoint of what immigration policy serves the best interests of the United States? Is the United States best off knowing who enters its territory from where for what purposes and how long they intend to stay? Should it attempt to attract a mix of immigrants with various backgrounds and skills every year? Should it allow people who have broken the law to enter the country or stay in the country to jump ahead of people who are following the correct legal path in obtaining permanent residency
status or citizenship?

Obama loves to talk about fairness and social justice, but those issues seem to get thrown out the window in favor of political considerations when subjects like immigration start getting discussed.

I love the vision of America that allows anyone who wants to work hard to come here.

I think Elissa is quite right to note that we can’t have open borders and a welfare state. That just doesn’t work. I wish the GOP had the spine to offer a deal that fundamentally guts the welfare state and also opens up immigration to any law abiding person who speaks English. I think a common language is very important to having a functional society.

Many democrats have a different view entirely. Amnesty and the welfare state are both ways to buy votes, so they don’t conflict at all and the fiscal instability is something to be ignored.

The most disingenuous part of this entire charade is the fight over full citizenship. I have known many illegals. I have asked a good many of these if they cared about such, or if they just wanted to be “legal” to work and move about without fear of deportation. Not once did any person care about citizenship.

Secondly, anyone who believes that full Federal benefits will not accrue to these “legal workers” is smokin’ da whacky tobaccy.

I get why Rubio is saying and doing what he is saying and doing. I hate that he is, though.

Anything that Chuckie Schumer is for, especially if both Chuckie and John McCain agree, makes me immediately suspicious.

Too bad, because what designated-dupe Marco Rubio is selling is probably as good as what we’ll ever get, but Schumer, Durbin, et al will write the bill with Rubio’s provisions in place as strongly as, say, a restraining order against a violent husband, and just as effective.

Is the GOP truly mind-numbingly stupid enough to think that this will help them with hispanics?

The GOP lost Asians by one point more than they lost Hispanics, and amnesty is not an issue in the Asian community.

First off, not all hispanics are Mexican. Cubans, for example, are hispanic, and also largely aren’t pro-amnesty. (and they often vote R).

Secondly, this is transparent pandering, and it will be seen as such. John “amnesty” McCain did worse among Hispanics than either Bush did. Yet this utter moron thinks passing amnesty or any other sort of immigration “Reform” will help the GOP? He’s brain-dead, and has been for years.

Amensty (and that’s what this is, no matter how they dress it up)might get the GOP a one-time 5% bump among hispanics, and only cost them 15% amongst Republicans and conservatives. So, this brilliant scheme would be a net vote loser on the order of millions of votes in the short term, and then create a long-term deficit of millions of votes once the amnestied ones get citizenship and turn up at the polls to vote D, which anyone with a functioning brain cell knows they will.

20. I don’t think more regulations on small business is they way to fix the immigrations

if this loser little country can’t control its border why should productive enterprises like a farm or a slaughterhouse or a convenience store or a leather belt belt factory have to bear the responsibility to fix the problem

it’s really not their problem that I can see

Comment by happyfeet (4bf7c2) — 1/29/2013 @ 9:14 am

This whole focus on businesses hiring illegals is a complete con. Just deception.

Businesses, like the state of Arizona or Alabama, that actually try to ensure they don’t hire illegal aliens get sued by the DoJ for “document abuse.” That was a category of illegality added to the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1990 to prevent discrimination against non-citizens or those thought to be non-citizens.

The feds who are busy not securing the border so they can instead sue employers like Rose Acres, a major egg producer, that are “overzealous” in trying to ensure they don’t hire illegal aliens.

It’s a ridiculous situation unless you get caught up in it. On the one hand the politicians posture about companies that hire illegal aliens being the root cause of the problem. On the other hand, they pass laws to make it a legal minefield for employers (especially as in the example of Rose Acres in industries like agriculture where it’s a definite concern) to try and make sure they don’t hire illegal aliens.

Employers are damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I know of several federal lawsuits in which DoJ sued employers for demanding too much documentation when trying to comply with I-9 compliance. I don’t know of any where they sued if employers used e-verify. But keep in mind that DoJ sued the state of Florida for attempting to use that data base to purge voter roles.

At some point people have got to accept the fact that the politicians blaming employers for illegal immigration while tying their hands don’t want anyone to do anything about illegal immigration. In any case we pay for this huge and expensive enforcement apparatus. Which, by the way, also has its hands tied by the Obama administration. Employers shouldn’t be the first line of defense when it comes to border security. What the government is doing is the real crime.

Patricia and mg, several years back the LA Times had an article on the “browning” (I think that was actually their term) of Compton, as well as other parts of LA County (South-Central, neighborhoods in Wilmington and Long Beach, etc.) that were traditionally mostly African-American. Because most of these Hispanics were non-citizens, the elected representatives continued to be local black politicians. The article reported that the really forward-thinking young black leaders in the community were learning to speak Spanish, in anticipation of the day when the sons and daughters of the largely illegal immigrant crowd were able to vote.

The article did mention the friction that was developing between the Hispanic and black communities over various community services. One thing that well-off progressives never stop to consider: How would you feel if your son or daughter were enrolled in an already weak public school in a low-income area, and you had to watch as the meager resources your school has were overwhelmingly being spent on extra ESL programs and hiring more bilingual counselors and staff members? What if the local fast food restaurant told your son or daughter (or even you) that there were no jobs working the cash register, the drive-through window, or even the grill unless you could speak Spanish? It will be interesting to see how the African-American community reacts to the mass amnesty once they start to see their economic and political power base crumble.

I understand the spirit of your idea, but imagine what would happen if you took and anchor baby born here and shipped them back to Mexico or Honduras or Guatamala with an invitation to come back here and assume their full citizenship at age 18. You would almost certainly end up with someone who is functionally illiterate in both English and Spanish, pretty much unemployable but eligible for public assistance as an American citizen. In this case, the cure may very well be worse than the disease.

I’m not sure why people who came here illegally as adults should cut in line in front of people who tried to become citizens the right way.

Mark Steyn, who’s a legal immigrant and thus still has to deal with I.C.E., reports that so far the GOP efforts at trying to prevent people from gaming the system are just window dressing. For instance, they include proposals in their amnesty bills to charge application fees at each step in the legalization process.

There already are application fees, etc., at immigration. So what? Obama just waives the fees for protected minorities. Mark Steyn still has to pay the fees. And, contrary to federal law, the Obama administration uses the fees paid by legal immigrants to pay the fees being waived for illegal immigrants.

So they’re not just cutting in line ahead of the legal immigrants. They’re ripping them off. As they’ve not doubt been ripping off some American citizen when they commit partial identity theft (as nearly all if not all do so they can be “documented” undocumented aliens).

It’s insane to think these are the kind of people who should be cutting to the head of the line as opposed to, say, some guy from Zimbabwe who got a mining engineering degree at some European university and then came here legally. Or a German doctor. It’s also insane to think the illegal, unskilled laborers will vote for Republicans as if they’re somehow budding social conservatives. Most emigrate from countries where the Catholic Church and other denominations practice some form of Marxist liberation theology that preaches against the wealthy. And who do you think they’re told by their friendly community organizer the GOP is for? Plus, something like 60& of illegal aliens get some form of welfare.

But I can’t believe they’re doing this entirely out of stupidity. They have to know Obama simply will waive whatever sanctions or enforcement provisions they put into the law. Like he’s doing now. I don’t know what the GOP’s game is, but I’m getting the distinct impression their interests don’t coincide with my own. In exchange for amnesty now they will agree to some sort of future enforcement action that will never take place. But they’ll lie and argue differently.

Like all of the attempts before, the amnesty will be handed out, the enforcement will never be funded because actually enforcing the rules will rile someone who will then vote for the other guy, and we’ll be right back, in another ten-twenty years, where we are today, but worse!

Well, you are right about that. Back in the days of the Bush Administration some Republicans talked about a points system for citizenship. The way it was supposed to work is that once you get your green card you get a certain number of points for each task you perform that theoretically makes you a more desirable candidate. For instance, you might get 2 points for getting a GED, 3 more points for a bachelor’s degree, 5 more points for an advanced degree in certain fields (medicine, engineering, etc.). You also get points for military service, having consistent employment, paying your taxes, maybe even for a certain number of volunteer hours of community service. Each year, the Department of Homeland Security or some other agency would set a certain number of citizenship openings, and the candidates with the most points would be eligible for those spots. Everyone else would continue to accumulate points and try again next year.

That seemed to me like a sensible way of doing things which would reward those who did the most to contribute to society. The problem for the open-borders crowd is that it would likely benefit certain demographics who are more likely to be educated and high-skilled workers (and thus may not be amenable to government social welfare programs), over other demographics who are more likely to end up in jobs centered around manual labor. This isn’t acceptable to progressives. Also, the Catholic Church still thinks this is 1880 and they want “family reunification” to be an immigration priority, meaning that once Boris becomes a citizen he gets to bring over his brother, sisters, aunt, uncle, cousins, etc. In the age of telephones, email, Skype, and relatively cheap air travel, I find that sentimentality to be absolutely archaic.

I know this may be unpopular with some, but I mostly supported the Bush Administration’s push for immigration reform. I fear that we will end up with something far less better and history will record that conservatives missed a golden opportunity to implement a sensible immigration policy because they stuck to the “illegal is illegal” mantra and couldn’t coalesce around the Bush plan for reform.

My Grandparents (KS farmers displaced by The Dust Bowl and the Great Depression) settled in Willowbrook, the low-cost part of Compton, in the late-30′s – early-40′s, and told me that at the time, the Blacks were moving south out of Watts pushing the Mexicans out of Willowbrook.
I go back every now and then to see their old house (still there, facing the old Red Car line, now the Blue Line to Long Beach) and see that the area is almost 100% Hispanic.

==Secondly, this is transparent pandering, and it will be seen as such.==

By whom? Both sides are pandering like crazy on this issue now. I thought sure the phony “war on women” would be seen as the transparent pandering it was, but my worldview changed considerably on Nov. 6, 2012.

The situation with uncontrolled eleven million illegals here is as close to an intractible/unsolvable problem as I have seen in my adult lifetime. There was a decent chance in Reagan’s time, but…..

elissa – None of this matters since Obama has now proclaimed we don’t need endless debates on immigration. After skipping the issue during his first term he apparently feels the fierce urgency of now and is going to use the “insist clause” of the constitution to send his own bill to congress and make sure they pass it if they don’t produce what he wants. He’s a reasonable man after all.

Barry is en fuego, daley. According to the wee congressman the President called and promised Luis Gutierrez by phone today that immigration reform is his number one priority. Just thought all you economics worrywarts would want to know.

California has changed not due to race but due to culture, most prominently because the recent generation of immigrants from Latin America did not — as in the past, for the most part — come legally in manageable numbers and integrate under the host’s assimilationist paradigm. Instead, in the last three decades huge arrivals of illegal aliens from Mexico and Latin America saw Democrats as the party of multiculturalism, separatism, entitlements, open borders, non-enforcement of immigration laws, and eventually plentiful state employment.

Given the numbers, the multicultural paradigm of the salad bowl that focused on “diversity” rather than unity, and the massive new government assistance, how could the old American tonic of assimilation, intermarriage, and integration keep up with the new influxes? It could not.

According to the wee congressman the President called and promised Luis Gutierrez by phone today that immigration reform is his number one priority.

So when the Dems promised us that jobs would be their major focus in the new Congressional session they were really talking about agriculture and minimum-wage labor jobs? I wonder if the unemployed 24-year-old college graduates who were nuts about Obama in 2008 and then again last year are going to notice that?

Remember, it was 20-25 years ago that Pat Buchanan sounded the bugle over the coming Culture War in America.
In so many ways, mainly because we failed to acknowledge its existence, we are losing that war.

JD, I don’t think that Obama really “gives up” on anything. He seems to think that his job is to make a ponderous speech about it and then leave it to Congress to paint in the details. After his Las Vegas speech, Obama can safely check off the immigration box on his to-do list. If nothing has come of it two or three months from now, he’ll just go out and deliver another speech, this one from somewhere like Ted Turner’s ranch in New Mexico or, if he is really feeling fisky, from some Democrat-leaning part of Texas.

Eliminate citizen at birth if the only connection is your mother happened to be in the US at the time.

Actually, this thread shows there really is no path back to the Republic. If there is no group of states willing to convene a constitutional convention and no group willing to secede, you’re left with the generations of sophomoric minded morons of the public school indoctrination program. The first wave hit the pools in 2000 and it’s all downhill from there.

As an illustration of how ignorant and misinformed people are on this issue, tonight I heard mark levin on the radio say that the 1965 law had enlarged immigration from Latin America.

No – in 1968, for the first time it was restricted by numbers. Immigration from the Western Hemispeher had only quality restrictions before. That’s why you only got a lot of illegal immigration from Mexico after that. It was open borders from Cuba in 1960.

(Colonies were in a peculiar position – a near zero quota till indepdence)

Because they are closer and because there are (now) a multitude of transnational connections. Also, because Mexicans have shown that they are industrious and family oriented and have many cultural similarities with the US.

Did you know that in the 1990′s California Hispanics voted mostly Republican — work ethic and family values — and California Republicans won elections. Then some fool Governor decided to demonize them as deadbeats to get re-elected.

I’m pretty sure the Chinese and Indians and Dutch and Turks and Brazilians who cannot just sneak across the border and must wait their turn in line think they are industrious and family oriented and have many cultural similarities and transnational connections with the U.S. as well.

75. So, askeptic, do you live in a place with lots of freeloading Hispanics?

Comment by Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 1/29/2013 @ 5:08 pm

Tons of them. I assure you that askeptic does as well, and you do, too, if you would look into it.

Free medical care if you pretend to speak only Spanish! If you don’t want to pay, just go to the emergency room. Nobody checks to see if you are actually in this country legally or not or have the ability to pay or not. Ironically, it’s better to be illegal.

They may be hardworking and family oriented but they’re not fools and if this country is willing to give them services for free that other people have to pay for, they’ll take the free services.

Do you get around much? Some convenience stores and gas stations I go into in Hispanic areas will have a line of customers. I’ll be the only one without an EBT card.

I don’t know what word you use to describe someone who expects other people to pay for their food and medical care, but the word “freeloading” was invented for that very purpose.

Labour has always justified immigration on economic grounds and denied it was using it to foster multiculturalism.

But suspicions of a secret agenda rose when Andrew Neather, a former government adviser and speech writer for Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett, said the aim of Labour’s immigration strategy was to ‘rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date’.

…The document was not published in its original format over fears of an adverse public reaction. Instead it was released a year later as a research document on the economic benefits of migration.

A draft of the original Cabinet Office report has now been published following a freedom of information request by Migrationwatch.

It contains six references to social policy, all of which were removed from the later, published version.

The Labour party, like Barack Obama, wanted to “fundamentally transform their country, too. And throwing the doors open to mass immigration of people who do not have a tradition of representative government and do not have any respect for our Constitutional values is a way to do it quickly.

And make no mistake, the poorer, unskilled Hispanics the Democrats are deliberately importing will be their clients.

Take the call for limited government, a cornerstone of the GOP’s political message. In a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey taken last summer, 67 percent of Hispanics said they favor a “larger federal government with many services” over a “smaller federal government with fewer services.” Republicans expressed a dramatically different viewpoint in the poll, with 80 percent saying they prefer a “smaller federal government with fewer services.”

The vast majority of Hispanics coming to this country are coming for the government services.

And if anybody thinks the fact I’m quoting British sources about Labour policy on immigration smacks of some grand conspiracy, think again. It isn’t as if two liberal parties can’t arrive at the same conclusion about using immigration policy to import a majority coalition. Besides, all you have to do is google the bios of democratic campaign consultants like Bob Shrum to see that the two parties have a working relationship.

It seems to me that there are two dangers to the United States connected with the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico that aren’t much discussed.

1) Having a large population living here illegally creates a social underworld where God only knows what can hide. It’s all very well to say “Deport them all and fortify the border” but it ain’t going to happen, and would cost the flipping Earth if we tried. Further, these are people, and by and large far less dangerous to our Way Of Life than, say, college professors. Leaving them in legal limbo is, at best, amoral.

2) Mexico is a failed State. It has been a failed State more or less forever, but recently it has been getting worse. The Mexican people are for the most part pleasant and hardworking. The Mexican government could be replaced by a random selection of political hacks from the history of Jersey City, New Jersey and significantly improved.

It really is a pity that conquest and annexation of Mexico is a political non-starter; it strikes me as far likelier to have a happy outcome than any of the “solutions” we are being offered.

85. It’s all very well to say “Deport them all and fortify the border” but it ain’t going to happen, and would cost the flipping Earth if we tried. Further, these are people, and by and large far less dangerous to our Way Of Life than, say, college professors. Leaving them in legal limbo is, at best, amoral.

Comment by C. S. P. Schofield (fdfc57) — 1/29/2013 @ 11:43 pm

For them to be here illegally is, at best, amoral. Then when you factor in the identity theft that nearly all illegal aliens engage in to remain here and it becomes something worse than amoral.

This is part of the problem of importing welfare colonists from failed states. They bring their habits with them. Failed states, particularly failed narco-states which is what Mexico has been for a while, don’t provide much in the way of civics lessons for anyone. I linked to a couple of articles, including a Pew poll. Immigration isn’t a hot button issue for most Hispanics living legally in the US. There’s a reason for it.

Among its victims: the American underclass, the law, and legal immigrants.

They recognize that they are the ones who are primarily and negatively impacted by illegal immigration. We are not talking a victimless crime.

As far as it costing the Earth to deport them, it will end up costing the Earth, the Moon, Mars, Saturn and Neptune to keep them.

Literally. The Gross World Product (per the CIA World Factbook) was estimated at $67.11 trillion in 2011. Our national debt is now approximately $16.5 trillion. Or 24% of the entire gross world product. It’s projected to be $22.5 trillion in 2016 when President Tiger Beat leaves office. I don’t know how much the projected GWP is estimated to be in 2016, but our debt is growing much faster.

How many unskilled laborers do we plan on importing into this socialist hell Obama envisions fundamentally transforming us into? Enough to drive our debt to 50% of GWP? Where are we supposed to get the money for this really, really bad idea?

The Roman state survived. The liberty of the Roman people did not. When freedom became possible in the West in the 5th century, with the barbarian invasions, people took advantage of the possibility of change. The peasantry had become totally alienated from the Roman state because they were no longer free. The business community likewise was no longer free. And the middle class of the cities was no longer free.

The economy of the West was perhaps more fatally weakened than that of the East. The early 5th century Christian priest Salvian of Marseille wrote an account of why the Roman state was collapsing in the West — he was writing from France (Gaul). Salvian says that the Roman state is collapsing because it deserves collapse; because it had denied the first premise of good government, which is justice to the people.

By justice he meant a just system of taxation. Salvian tells us, and I don’t think he’s exaggerating, that one of the reasons why the Roman state collapsed in the 5th century was that the Roman people, the mass of the population, had but one wish after being captured by the barbarians: to never again fall under the rule of the Roman bureaucracy.

In other words, the Roman state was the enemy; the barbarians were the liberators.

I really don’t know why Obama intends to bankrupt the US; maybe he realizes that if he acts like a Roman emperor of the 3rd century the house of cards will collapse after he’s dead.

But I see no reason to bankrupt the people of the US to support a population that’s only in this country because they acted illegally and immorally. Hell, I don’t see any reason to bankrupt the producers to support a population that’s here legally.

I listened to an interview with Sen. Rubio yesterday. I thought that he was a good speaker and had what seemed like a reasonable overall approach which linked going forward to giving legal status (not citizenship) to people currently here (and not criminals, etc.) to verifiable progress on securing the boarder.
One weakness pointed out was even if it was signed that the Obama admin could avoid enforcing the parts they don’t like.

Well one can actually go further back to the Social Wars, where the winners of the previous
engagement, Marius and Sulla, over Jugurtha, a North African prince, went to blows over
a similar circumstance,

Not really off topic, as the whole drive to legalize illegal immigrants is to gain political supporters who will gleefully join Obama in bankrupting the country. They’ll join a lot of people already here who are already eager to do that.

New mortgage rules issued last week by the administration will have the effect of forcing lenders to approve prime loans to borrowers who would normally only qualify for subprime loans carrying higher interest rates and fees to cover the added risk of default.

Banks are already under renewed pressure from federal prosecutors and regulators to make home loans to low-income borrowers with blemished credit as part of the administration’s stepped-up enforcement of anti-redlining laws.

…As a result, analysts warn lenders may end up having to “subsidize” riskier borrowers at the expense of other customers.

…”Under its tortured definition of ‘prime,’ a borrower can have no down payment, a credit score of 580, and a debt (-to-income) ratio over 50%,” as long as the borrower is charged a prime rate, said former Fannie Mae chief credit officer Edward Pinto.

Mortgages carrying a prime rate, or one within 1.5 percentage points of the national average, will have the strongest level of legal protection, according to the regulator. Analysts say this rule effectively limits lenders’ ability to price for risk. Lenders who charge rates above the 1.5-point threshold open themselves up to legal liability.

Starting in January 2014, when the new rules take effect, borrowers who default on nonqualifying home loans will have the power to “raise a foreclosure defense” against banks, according to Joseph Barloon, a lawyer for New York-based Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

Pinto, now a fellow for the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute, agrees: “CFPB’s definition will force a lender to either subsidize risky loans to get the presumption of affordability (for lower-income borrowers), or subject itself to a rebuttable presumption (by charging subprime rates), which will bring certain litigation from the tort bar at every attempt made to foreclose.”

That’s all that’s going on here. Responsible borrowers will be forced to subsidize the irresponsible. The money that was taxed from the “rich” has already been spent. And it is naive in the extreme that we’ll be importing hard-working laborers who will be doing jobs that Americans are unwilling to do. Anyone who thinks that has a romanticized and entirely false impression of illegal immigrants. That is not what’s going on. As a matter of fact, this is why the Democrats will always sabotage border enforcement. They will continue to need new welfare colonists to reinforce their ranks as the previous generations assimilate.

The destruction of this country is deliberate. And I’m sorry to raise the “good man” issue but this is what Obama promised. I read his platform in 2008, particularly what he promised “to do for” small business as I’m partners in two. He wasn’t promising to do anything “for” small business but rather “to” small business. It was all a lie then, it’s a lie now, and a good man doesn’t do that. He’s a lying, vile creep. You can’t get elected by promising to screw the middle class. So he claimed he was going to do things “for” the but of course when you looked at who he is he was always planning to screw the middle class. He hates the middle class; that’s why he joined Rev. Wright’s TUCC which promotes a “black value system” that rejects “middleclassness.” He particularly hates the fact that people who achieve “middleclassness” leave cities like Chicago and thus deny them their tax dollars.

The inflation he has planned for this country will also rob responsible people of their savings. But then impoverished, unarmed people are more compliant and are unable to do much about subsequent robberies of their liberties and little remaining wealth. History is replete with such examples; in Japan the new warlord would go on a “sword hunt” because it interfered with oppressive tax collection.

Obama is going to s*** on this country and tell you that it’s really a powerful fertilizer that will grow the economy. This amnesty scam is just part of that.

I would argue that there is a qualitative difference in the immorality of crossing a border illegally to escape a failed state (which, incidentally, has taught you contempt of the law because its laws are contemptible) and support yourself and allowing the continued situation whereby such people are held in a legal limbo and exploited.

Both are wrong. The second is worse.It is especially wrong if your excuse is “They should get in line” when there is no line (Right tendency) or “Enforcing the laws is wrong but (implied) changing the laws is too much trouble” (Left tendency).

You can argue what you wish. The most I will concede is that illegal aliens aren’t entirely to blame for the situation. They couldn’t get away with their crimes if federal, state, and local government officials didn’t create a lawless environment for them to exploit.

Illegal immigrants are not “undocumented.” They have fraudulent documents such as counterfeit Social Security cards, forged drivers licenses, fake “green cards,” and phony birth certificates. Experts suggest that approximately 75 percent of working-age illegal aliens use fraudulent Social Security cards to obtain employment.

Most (98 percent) Social Security number (SSN) thieves use their own names with stolen numbers. The federal E-Verify program, now mandated in only 14 states, can detect this fraud. Universal, mandatory use of E-Verify would curb this and stop virtually 100 percent of child identity theft.

Illegal immigration and high levels of identity theft go hand-in-hand. States with the most illegal immigration also have high levels of job-related identity theft. In Arizona, 33 percent or all identity theft is job-related (as opposed to identity theft motivated simply by profit). In Texas it is 27 percent; in New Mexico, 23 percent; in Colorado, 22 percent; California, 20 percent; and in Nevada, 16 percent. Eight of the 10 states with the highest percentage of illegal aliens in their total population are among the top 10 states in identity theft (Arizona, California, Florida, Texas, Nevada, New York, Georgia, and Colorado).

Children are prime targets. In Arizona, it is estimated that over one million children are victims of identity theft. In Utah, 1,626 companies were found to be paying wages to the SSNs of children on public assistance under the age of 13. These individuals suffer very real and very serious consequences in their lives.

Illegal aliens commit felonies in order to get jobs. Illegal aliens who use fraudulent documents, perjure themselves on I-9 forms, and commit identity theft in order to get jobs are committing serious offenses and are not “law abiding.”

Illegally employed aliens send billions of dollars annually to their home countries, rather than spending it in the United States and helping stimulate the American economy. In October 2008 alone, $2.4 billion was transferred to Mexico.

Tolerance of corruption erodes the rule of law. Corruption is a serious problem in most illegal aliens’ home countries. Allowing it to flourish here paves the way for additional criminal activity and increased corruption throughout society.

Leaders support perpetrators and ignore victims. Political, civic, religious, business, education, and media leaders blame Americans for “forcing” illegal aliens to commit document fraud and identity theft. No similar concern is expressed for the American men, women, and children whose lives are destroyed in the process.

The Social Security Administration and Internal Revenue Service facilitate illegal immigrant-driven identity theft. Both turn a blind eye to massive SSN fraud and take no action to stop it. The Social Security Administration assigns SSNs to new-born infants that are being used illegally. The IRS demands that victims pay taxes on wages earned by illegal aliens using their stolen SSNs, while taking no action to stop the identity theft.

State and local governments need to adopt tougher laws to supplement federal efforts. The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is targeting large document fraud rings and the most egregious employers, but their resources are limited and stretched across multiple priorities. In 2007, identity theft cases represented only 7 percent of the total ICE case load.

Employers must do their part. They can ensure that they have a legal workforce by using a combination of the federal government’s E-Verify and Social Security Number Verification Service systems and by signing up for the federal government’s IMAGE program or privately conducted audits.

So, yes, it’s an immoral system. But it was deliberately created to be an immoral system. And I will not be emotionally blackmailed by the people who created it, undermining the laws to do so, and those who knowingly benefit from it.

I can assure you they are well aware that they are committing crimes. In the rare case they didn’t know before illegally crossing the border or overstaying their visa they’ve got plenty of immigration advocates both inside and outside government telling them they are entitled to commit those crimes.

Which leads me to another aspect of the immorality of the entire illegal immigration debate. The racism. No one is arguing that the millions of Asians here illegally have any particular right to be here. You don’t Chinese or Philippine embassy officials demanding we change our immigration laws. There is only one nation that I’m aware of whose government files friend-of-the-court briefs in lawsuits against states like Arizona arguing enforcing our immigration laws hurts diplomatic relations between our two countries. I’ll give you a hint. It’s the one group Democratic party officials will admit is entitled to do so because “we stole it” from them. That is, when they think it won’t be heard by unsympathetic ears and get repeated.

So, no, I won’t be extorted by the same people who have advocated for, aided and abetted in creating, and benefited from this system. If it’s immoral it’s a matter of policy, not by accident. It serves as better tool for extortion; now I’m supposed to be the bad guy if I don’t undo what they’ve deliberately done.

And I certainly won’t bankroll the destruction of the republic because a particular nationality has historical grievances against it.

Residents of an Arizona town who fled their homes because of a massive fire say they are outraged at Obama’s claims to have secured the Mexican border.

Hundreds of people evacuated their homes in Portal because of the fire that is suspected to have been started by illegal immigrants in the drug and human smuggling corridor, 50 miles north of the Mexico border.

They don’t suspect. There have been at least two major fires in that canyon in successive years. The residents can see the campfires burning at night up in the mountains as the illegal aliens head north.

Cochise County sheriff Larry Dever said: ‘These people are not overreacting. What they suggest in letter is very deep part of their belief system based on their experience and their experience has been horrific.

‘They see human smuggling and drug trafficking, they sit on their porch and watch people walk through, they’ve had their homes burgled,’ he told Fox News.

‘It’s a beautiful landscape and for those that moved out there for a sense of tranquility and peace, that’s been destroyed.’

…LETTER TO OBAMA

‘Seizure of record quantities of drugs may pad the statistics of Homeland Security, but it does nothing to ease the burdens we have been forced to bear.

Over the years, as our homes have been burgled or invaded, our fences, water lines and windows repeatedly broken, our businesses driven toward bankruptcy, our natural surroundings desecrated by trash and fire, and our lives even obliterated, it has amazed us how little note is taken of these tragedies by our government and the press.

Is it enough, now that we have suffered back-to-back fires that threaten to erase our very reasons for living here?

What must we say or do to garner your attention and help?

How is it that, on the same day we took Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, we could not prevent illegals – 50 miles within our borders – from setting a fire along a known smuggling route in an extremely dry year?

Why were federal agents not posted along this route in anticipation of a repeat of last year’s calamity?

Better still, why were the illegals not captured before they had travelled 50 miles north of the border?

Or, in the eyes of our government, do we just reside in a “sacrifice zone”?’

I’ve known people who’ve been forced to sell border properties. Sometimes land that was in their families for generations. Simply because they were no longer safe on those properties.

The problem with actively undermining immigration enforcement, turning a blind eye to property crimes, and facilitating identity crime as our federal government has done is that it convinces these illegal aliens that official corruption is just as much a fact of life here as it is in their home countries. And they aren’t too far off, since the reason these officials aid and abet immigration crimes is that they expect a quid pro quo. For elected officials it comes in the form of votes.

Consequently the nature of illegal aliens have changed. Word travels, even south of the border. And they demonstrate the kind of disregard for the law they expect to get away with in their home countries.

They know they’re committing crimes. They don’t care because they get the message loud and clear that their crimes will be tolerated. So I’m not sympathetic to the idea they’re just coming here to work hard and make an honest living to support their families. They can remit more of the money they make to their families at home if they take advantage of as much government assistance as possible. And supplement whatever they make legally by other means.